Photos: Baba’s Eat Ali’s Artichokes

Photos: Baba’s Eat Ali’s Artichokes

Experience the wonders of carciofi

These days, everywhere I turn I see artichokes. Strange, they should be showing up in a month or so. The freeze of the past weeks has woken them up, I guess, and now all the markets in Rome are proudly displaying their Roman artichokes (grown in Sicily or Sardegna). I say proudly because artichokes, called “mammole” here, have been fundamental in Roman cuisine all the way back to the ancient Romans and even before. I’ve never been a big fan of carciofi until I had some fresh artichoke salad — very thinly cut with parmesan flakes, olive oil, lemon juice and freshly ground black pepper — as simple as that.